While there was a conspicuous lack of interesting gigs during my visit to New York in March, I did have a few cultural bits and bobs set in stone long before I boarded my flight. One of those was a trip over to the Meatpacking District to catch 'Edward Hopper's New York' at The Whitney a couple of days before the show closed. Given that it was so late in the retrospective's five month run, together with the necessity to pre-book not just a ticket, but also a specific timeslot, I more or less assumed that the gallery space would be easy and comfortable to negotiate. How wrong I was. It was absolutely rammed, ridiculously oversold. I'm guessing that The Whitney had decided to ring every last drop out of the popular exhibit before it packed up and shipped out. The Hopper art on display was almost exclusively modest in size, which meant needing to get as close as possible to each piece while continuously jostling with the crowds for a couple of hours. It was like being in an ongoing series of scrums, moving slowly through the gallery. The work itself was of course fantastic. I was particularly interested by the many magazine illustrations on view, an area of his life I knew little about. Then there were the sketchbooks. The creative process in any artform is a thing of mystery and fascination to me and it was riveting to see as he edged, over successive pages, ever closer towards a finished masterpiece we know so well.
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5 comments:
Oh thanks for showing those marvellous sketches, I just adore seeing those first early marks and to see how it all evolves, and often prefer sketches to finished pieces because they are SO much more directly connected to the person, their hand and their brain, their thoughts - ooh it actually makes my spine tingle. Perhaps also because I spend so much time getting those first ideas and plans out in pencil with my own work, it's the most free part of the process and my favourite. Always a shame in a way that it's the part no-one gets to see normally, except in cases like this so it's wonderful to get that glimpse here. Less wonderful for you having to navigate your way through an unexpectedly busy exhibition to see them (and the rest), of course - but still worthwhile!
And a great song to boot.
I too was lucky enough to catch a visiting Hopper sexhibition nearly 20 years ago in NYC. It was at The Met and they brought Nighthawks.
C's right - when artists show their workings out it's like looking inside their head.
Thanks for sharing, TS.
JM
Sexhibition? D’oh!
JM
Sexhibition! That made me laugh. It deserves to be in the dictionary, surely.
Glad you liked these shots C. As a complete non-creative, I'm completely fascinated by the creative process, be it songwriting or art, demos or sketches. Watching/listening as initial ideas appear out of the ether just never gets old for me.
As for you John, Sexhibition caught me with a mouthful of food and nearly had me coughing a lung up!
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